


Football Fun

by Zetal (Rodinia)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Football, Leaf Wrestling, M/M, grown men acting like children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 07:41:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8658382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/pseuds/Zetal
Summary: Thanksgiving in the Bunker.  Sam and Dean are excited about the Cowboys-Redskins football game.  Cas is confused, so the boys start trying to explain football to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Tumblr challenge with the prompt: "Football game - Heaven". The challenge was to use a character associated with Heaven in the fic.
> 
> Been wanting to write something like this anyway.
> 
> All Cowboys mentioned are real players who kicked butt in the Cowboys-Redskins 2016 Thanksgiving Football Game.

Human traditions were weird. Castiel stared at the television in confusion. “I don’t understand. Is this a game or a battle?”

“Both.” Sam threw an arm over the back of the couch so that his fingers could just brush against Cas’s neck. “It’s kind of based on a war… each side has an end zone that they defend, and just like in a war where things go back and forth, the players go back and forth until one side gets to the other’s end zone. Then they get points, and start over. The goal of the game is to score more points than the other team.”

“Dude, no.” Dean plopped down on Cas’s other side and glared at Sam as he set out beers for everyone. “If you’re gonna teach him about football, just teach him the basics. Don’t go getting all philosophical nerd on him. It’ll be bad enough once he gets familiar enough to understand the statistics.”

Sam shot Dean a bitchface as he took his beer. “Okay. Simple. The guys in blue and silver are the Cowboys, that’s the team Dean and I cheer for. The guys in the white and burgundy are the Redskins, and they’re big rivals of the Cowboys. Goal is to get the ball into the end zone, which you can do either running or passing, and the other team tries to stop you.”

“I see.” Castiel watched the game. It still wasn’t making much sense to him.

Dean shook his head. “Maybe not that simple, Sammy. Okay, Cas. That guy that just caught the ball, Dak Prescott, he’s the quarterback. He’s in charge of his team. He’s got three main options after he catches it. He can throw it, like he just did, he can run with it, or he can hand it to someone else.”

Cas watched the play. It ended when the player who had caught the ball was tackled to the ground. “And the other team, they’re trying to… stop him?”

“Exactly.”

Cas thought he understood, a little. “So the quarterback is the general, deciding which strategy to use.”

Dean groaned. “Dammit, Sam. You are awful.”

“Shut up, you love it.” Sam brought his arm down around Cas's shoulders. “Although the quarterback’s more like a captain, like you were. He’s in the field, making the immediate calls, but following the instructions of his superiors. The coaches. You’ve got the head coach, who’s the general, coordinators for offense and defense, who are like the... colonels, I guess. The guys between you and Michael. They’re the ones who make up the plans and tell the quarterback what to do, but the quarterback’s responsible for executing it, and can change it if he doesn’t like the way things are lined up.”

Dean tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling for a moment. “My god you two are nerds.”

Castiel watched another few plays. “Who’s in charge on the other side?”

Sam looked over to Dean. Dean was the expert. “Okay. See how they’re lined up, you’ve got four that are real close to the Cowboys, three behind them, and then four spread out along the back? Those three in the middle, they’re the linebackers, one of them’s in charge. Usually the one inside. Sometimes they line up differently, but there’s always a specific guy who’s in charge.”

“I see.” They watched another play, and then Castiel had more questions. “Who are the guys in the striped shirts?”

“They’re the referees. They control the game. Say when it’s okay to start the play, or when someone’s broken a rule, and make the call on things like whether the receiver caught a pass or if they got the first down.” Dean stuck his tongue out at Sam. “Find a good metaphor for that one, bitch.”

“Well, the refs sure think they’re God sometimes.” Dean cracked up. “The refs are what make this a game instead of a war.”

“What’s a first down?”

“Okay, the goal is to get the ball into the end zone, but you usually aren’t expected to do it all at once. So when you first get the ball, you’ve got four downs to work with. If you can pick up ten yards with those, you reset the downs and start from first down again.” That made sense, at least.

Sam winked at Dean, who covered his face with his hand to hide from what was coming. “You know. You’ve got the war to win, within the war you win some battles. If you do well enough, you can keep the war going, if not, you retreat. Or, in football, you punt.”

They watched for a while more, Dean and Sam cheering or booing depending on whether the play went well for the Cowboys. After one play, though, they didn't line back up. “Everyone’s leaving. Why? Is the game over?”

“Nah. Halftime. An extended break so they can talk some things over and the Redskins can try to figure out a way to contain Zeke. They’re gonna fail, but they’ll try.” Dean tossed back the last of his beer.

“Zeke?”

Sam explained while Dean went to get more beer. “Ezekiel Elliott. I’ll point him out later, but he’s their best player. Great at running the ball. Redskins can’t seem to stop him, either.”

Dean scowled at Sam. “Dak Prescott’s the best player on the team. He’s the quarterback, and he’s been really great at making things happen. Can’t rule out Dez Bryant either. He’s their star receiver.”

Sam just shrugged. “Dak wouldn’t look near as good without Zeke to take the pressure off him.”

“And Zeke wouldn’t look near as good if the defense could focus everything on him because Dak wasn’t a threat.”

Castiel shook his head. He still didn't get this, and he needed to break up the fight. “And this is fun? People do this for entertainment?”

“Yeah. Tell you what, I don’t actually have a football but if we get one…” Dean cut off, staring at Sam. “What?”

“Be right back.” Sam ran off, leaving Castiel with Dean.

“If he comes back with a football, I’m going to be very confused. He never played in school. I did, some, but because of moving so much I couldn’t really ever get settled with a team and get good.”

“We don’t have anywhere near enough people to play a game of football.” Castiel hadn't kept count, but he was pretty sure that three people wouldn't be enough to make up even one team.

“Nah, but we can go out and throw the ball around. It’s fun. Or so I hear… Sam and I never actually did it. Never had a football.”

“We do now.” Sam came back, holding a box with a football in it. “We never got the chance as kids, so I thought… might be fun.”

“Sounds like. C’mon, Cas.” Dean got to his feet with a huge smile and went to get his jacket.

“Hmm?” Cas got to his feet to follow Dean and Sam. “What about the rest of the game?”

“As long as we’re back to watch the end, I don’t mind missing some of it for this, and I doubt we’ll be gone more than an hour.” Sam started working on unpackaging the football. “Let’s go play, huh?”

Outside, Sam and Dean tossed the ball back and forth a couple times to test it. Dean was the first one to throw to Cas. Cas reached up to catch it, but was surprised at how hard it hit his hands. “Whoops, sorry Cas! Threw that a little harder than I needed to.”

“That’s all right.” Castiel picked it up and threw it to Sam. Poorly.

“Alright, both of you, come here. Sam, you played flag football in gym class, you got no excuse for needing this reminder, but Cas, let me show you how to throw it.” Dean took Cas’s hand and wrapped it around the football, settling his fingers in the laces. “Sam, go out, then it’s your turn.”

“My excuse is that last time I threw a football, I was twelve and tiny,” Sam said as he walked a short distance away. “My hands have grown since! Still adjusting to that.”

“Weak.” Dean guided Cas’s hand and arm through the throwing motion. “When you get here, let go. With practice, you should be able to make the ball spin as it flies. Give it a try.”

Cas threw the ball. It was a much better attempt than the previous one, he had to admit, but Sam still had to run forward to catch it. Sam scooped it up and kept running towards them. Dean smirked and set himself, and when Sam got close, launched to tackle him. The two of them went rolling in leaves. Sam popped up laughing. “Jerk! Could’ve warned me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Dean jumped back to his feet. “Okay. Cas, go out, gonna remind Sam how to throw the ball.”

Cas went out to where Sam had been and watched as Dean corrected Sam’s hand placement. Dean whispered something in Sam’s ear that made Sam laugh. Sam threw the ball, and Cas ran under it. He hesitated after catching it. He wasn’t too sure about getting tackled. Then he saw the Winchesters running at him. He turned to run the other way, but Sam barreled into him and knocked him over, and Dean jumped on top of them.

Dean seemed to be in no hurry to get up, either. He started laughing. “Sammy, you got leaves in your hair. You look silly.”

Sam reached up and ran his fingers through his hair, knocking out the leaves. He reached down and brushed a couple leaves out of Cas’s hair, too. “You okay, Cas?”

“I think I see the appeal in this. At least, for the three of us. This is nice.” Cas set the ball down and picked up a handful of leaves instead, which he threw at Dean.

Dean looked at Sam. “You’re my witness. _He_ started it.”

“Cas started it. Cas, you might wanna run.” Sam rolled off of him and scooped up his own handful of leaves. Dean hopped to his feet as well, and picked up the football, which he tossed to Sam. Sam ignored it and flung the leaves at Dean’s face.

Soon it was an all-out leaf fight, with the football occasionally making surprise appearances. When Cas accidentally hit Sam in the face with it, Sam ran at him. Cas was still trying to apologize when Sam tackled him again, and the two went rolling. Cas ended up on top and reached down to kiss Sam. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hit me in the face all you like if I get kisses afterward.” Sam snuck another kiss… and used the distraction to get a handful of leaves to shove into Castiel’s collar.

Dean cracked up as Cas hopped to his feet and tried to brush out the leaves. “Truce? We’ve got a football game to get back to.”

“Truce.” Sam got to his feet and started helping Cas pick the leaves out. Dean came over to help knock leaves off of both of them.

“Truce.” Castiel brushed leaf dust off of Dean’s shirt. “This is fun. We should do it again soon.”

“Just wait till we get some snow. Snowball fights, me and Sammy got really good at.” Dean threw an arm around Cas and led him back inside.

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments as much as I love the Cowboys.


End file.
